2015-12-17

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, DEC. 16, 2015…..Just days after saying he was “seriously considering” running for a soon-to-be vacant state Senate seat, the fiancé of Senate President Stanley Rosenberg has decided not to run for office, according to a source with knowledge of his decision.

Bryon Hefner, 28, had been giving thought to campaigning for a seat in the chamber led by his long-time partner Rosenberg, a move that could have been politically delicate for the first-year Senate president who last year assured his colleagues that he had erected a “firewall” between his personal and professional lives.

According to the source, Hefner will instead volunteer for the campaign of Lydia Edwards, an East Boston attorney with Greater Boston Legal Services who announced on Monday that she would run for Sen. Anthony Petruccelli’s seat when he resigns to join a downtown lobbying firm.

Rosenberg, when asked Tuesday night about Hefner during a live interview with the Boston Globe, said his partner was “doing his due diligence” on the possibility of running. The couple lives together in a Beacon Hill condominium and also share a home in Amherst, from where Rosenberg has been a long-time elected official.

“Bryon has the right like anyone else to consider running for public office and he’s doing his due diligence and we’ll face that question if he decides to run,” Rosenberg said, when asked whether he would endorse his fiancé.

Before the latest talk of a potential political career, Hefner found himself in the news when the Boston Globe reported last December that he had mocked outgoing Senate President Therese Murray on social media and had been interfering in Senate business by talking with other members about influencing committee and leadership assignments.

Rosenberg, who had not yet been elected by his peers as Senate president at the time, responded with a letter to his fellow senators assuring them that Hefner had no role in the decision-making process of his office and that he would enforce a “firewall” between his personal and professional lives.

Asked Tuesday night whether the firewall was still in place in light of Hefner’s mulling over a potential Senate campaign, Rosenberg said, “Absolutely.”

Petruccelli, an East Boston Democrat who represents parts of Boston, Cambridge, Revere and Winthrop, is expected to resign sometime in January to join the firm Kearney, Donovan and McGee.

In anticipation of Rosenberg scheduling a special election to replace Petruccelli, a number of Democrats have either declared their intention to run or have said they are considering a campaign.

Along with Edwards, Rep. Jay Livingstone, of Beacon Hill, has also announced that he will run for the First Suffolk and Middlesex district seat.

Others considering running include East Boston Rep. Adrian Madaro, Winthrop Housing Authority member Joseph Boncore; Revere City Councilor Jessica Ann Giannino; outgoing Revere Mayor Dan Rizzo, who lost his re-election bid in November; East Boston’s Diana Hwang, who ran former Boston City Councilor John Connolly’s office before founding the Asian-American Women’s Political Initiative; and Ernani DeAraujo, an East Boston lawyer and former neighborhood liaison for the late Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, a North End Democrat and co-chair of the Financial Services Committee, said Monday that he would not run.

Copyright 2015 State House News Service

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